3.3.5 is on the PTU and is available to Evocati and Subscribers and Concierge - likely to drop in the next few days according to some sources...
Hurston to Space Timelapse (this was before the latest patch in which Hurtson now revolves on its axis).
[video=youtube;o9xUg-A8kr0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9xUg-A8kr0[/video]
And here's another video showing the sunset and sunrise over Lorville:
[video=youtube;_37uHGTXv6o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_37uHGTXv6o[/video]
It is looking incredible, I've had a watch of some streams I mean the performance in 3.3. alone is good enough to get ingame together and enjoy. Really looking forward to the system feeling THIS much bigger.
I second this.
Sent from my Swift 2 using Tapatalk
I have no problems with the performance or stability but the playability is not good yet. They will have to make a whole lot of stuff actually work to allow 3.3.5 to be a game version lasting more than a few hours, if 3.3 was anything to go by.
Also processors like my 4790K which is the old standard for half decent CPUs, still happily running every other game I play, comes in 25% below the recommended spec for SC. That's my bottleneck, nonetheless, the 1080Ti keeps the game running well, and CPU is 80% on average. I just hate to think that because the CPU is crunching a load of persistent information the CPU use will increase as more in game simulation starts working. I know that's what happens in Monster Hunter and I expect the instances to be far larger in SC.
On the topic of things to do and playability, several of the podcasts I listen to would agree with you there, Albert - no more than a few hours and you can pretty much cover off all of the current content - unless you're trying to unlock the mission givers, in which case it'll be a case of rinse and repeat to get your standing up with the one you're after. Unless of course, you're into exploring and simply gawping at the beautiful graphics, in which case you could be there for days, or weeks, even!
I've never played Monster Hunter, so have no frame of reference, but now that OCS is in the client, and looking to have the server side OCS up and running soon, I suspect that the instances in SC are going to be smaller than they have been thus far. And once we get server meshing in (hopefully before the end of 2019) then we're looking at a release candidate and just waiting for gameplay and content to catch up. At that point, we should have all of the tech hurdles sorted, and I don't think the spec required to run the game would increase greatly after that point (unless they decide to implement some new technology down the line). As an example, you only have to look at Eve Online - the game runs fine on decades old hardware, and the only reason to upgrade is when the devs stop supporting specific GPUs.
I've also heard that much of the work currently being done by the CPU is gradually being moved to the GPU. The conversion to Vulkan should improve this as well, so that may stave off the need to upgrade for a while.
That said, those below the recommended minimum spec will, no doubt have to upgrade at some point if they want a good experience.
Yea would like to give it a couple of hours as well. When is everyone likely to be online?
I can make most evenings with a little notice
Sent from my Swift 2 using Tapatalk
Quote from: Obsydian;435534On the topic of things to do and playability, several of the podcasts I listen to would agree with you there, Albert - no more than a few hours and you can pretty much cover off all of the current content - unless you're trying to unlock the mission givers, in which case it'll be a case of rinse and repeat to get your standing up with the one you're after. Unless of course, you're into exploring and simply gawping at the beautiful graphics, in which case you could be there for days, or weeks, even!
I've never played Monster Hunter, so have no frame of reference, but now that OCS is in the client, and looking to have the server side OCS up and running soon, I suspect that the instances in SC are going to be smaller than they have been thus far. And once we get server meshing in (hopefully before the end of 2019) then we're looking at a release candidate and just waiting for gameplay and content to catch up. At that point, we should have all of the tech hurdles sorted, and I don't think the spec required to run the game would increase greatly after that point (unless they decide to implement some new technology down the line). As an example, you only have to look at Eve Online - the game runs fine on decades old hardware, and the only reason to upgrade is when the devs stop supporting specific GPUs.
I've also heard that much of the work currently being done by the CPU is gradually being moved to the GPU. The conversion to Vulkan should improve this as well, so that may stave off the need to upgrade for a while.
That said, those below the recommended minimum spec will, no doubt have to upgrade at some point if they want a good experience.
Agree with everything you say mate and I’m enjoying what comes along regardless. It’s funny, my key mappings in Elite I spent years getting right and in SC I accept the defaults out of necessity and I don’t mind them.
More Hurston gorgeousness:
[video=youtube;pA6P2WserfU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6P2WserfU[/video]
[video=youtube;4GivIXz2Gcc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GivIXz2Gcc[/video]
PS: 3.3.5 is now open to everyone.
As in its on LIVE not PTU?
Ok it's PTU and the new city is very heavy on the CPU and the FPS has rocked back down the plughole. 85%+ CPU use on my 4790K. FoIP is still not good, 1-2FPS for me. Al lot of work needed in the next week and a half before launch.
Quote from: albert;435562As in its on LIVE not PTU?
Soryy, ye, I meant the PTU, however, it's actually just gone LIVE! :)
Quote from: Obsydian;435567Soryy, ye, I meant the PTU, however, it's actually just gone LIVE! :)
You have to be kidding? I was down to 2fps going through the tunnels to the elevators in the station with my 1080Ti running hot nad my 4790K at 89% for just SC! I cannot believe they have put this version to live.
Full refunds are hard work but technically possible if you persevere
Quote from: albert;435568You have to be kidding? I was down to 2fps going through the tunnels to the elevators in the station with my 1080Ti running hot nad my 4790K at 89% for just SC! I cannot believe they have put this version to live.
I'm downloading the update now and will give it a try when I can. I'm seeing reports of over 100fps in space and over 30fps in Lorville, so could 2fps perhaps indicate an issue with your machine? I presume you've got at least 16GM RAM and are running SC off an SSD, yes?
EDIT: According to posts on Reddit, most people seem to be experiencing roughly 20+fps more in the live build than they did in the PTU, so it may be worth you giving the live build a go.
In space I'm still good, Lorville it's far lower.
Quite a good stability improvement, actually very responsive throughout my hour trying the game tonight. Shame nobody else came on, I'm a sure a few of you said you'd be right in there at 3.3.5!
3.3.6 went live this morning, hopefully we see more and more of these sorts of regular updates!
I intended to jump in, but the Primary School my wife works at had Ofsted yesterday and it disrupted all the things.
Yeah, I was on for about 20 minutes last night, just trying it out and seeing what fps I was getting - over 60 in Port Olisar (on Ultra High). Unfortunately, it's been so long since I played, I've forgotten how to get my ship off the pad! I've got a Valkyrie, and it took me about 5 minutes to find how to get in it...
I'll need to schedule some time to get back in game and start learning the controls again!
Played for about an hour and a half tonight, and spent a huge amount of time trying to figure out the controls as it was all new to me! I was also fighting against my HOTAS which doesn't seem to be set up correctly: with my throttle at zero, the ship was always doing 21m/s! And I couldn't find a way to stop my mouse from moving my ship about!
After spending about 5 minutes in QT to Hurston, I then had to figure out how to land the ship...pointed at Loreville but my QT drive kept telling me I was too close (about 17000km away!). I eventually landed in darkness and got out of my ship to try and figure out how to find Loreville as I'd landed in the middle of nowhere. I got no replies in chat, so eventually started up my ship again and opened the route planner. Locate Loreville (I'd landed on the wrong side of the planet!) and set a course for it. Took off and tried to get back into space with my fuel alarm going off (still no idea whether I was doing it right), and when I exited the atmosphere I throttled back and engaged the QD, and sat back as it took me around the planet and emerged over Loreville (this time in sunlight!). I (eventually) landed outside of Loreville in one of the rubbish dumps:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4731[/ATTACH]
Not too much damage considering the battle I had to land her!
Saw a sign to Gate 04, so started running in that direction:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4732[/ATTACH]
6.5km (and about 40 minutes) later, it was pitch dark, but I finally came across the sign for gate 04:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4733[/ATTACH]
About 5 minutes more of running and I finally got there!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4734[/ATTACH]
Took the train to central:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4735[/ATTACH]
Went to the workers area to rey and rent a hab, but couldn't get any response from the cleark, so I had a wander around. Unfortunately I clipped through the wall and fell through the floor and watched helplessly as my character flailed as it fell to its doom...and woke up back on Port Olisar:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4736[/ATTACH]
FPS was quite varied, with a max of about 70 and a min of around 20 (I have a 980ti).
Feel quite exhausted after all that, but I do like the slow paced, massive scale of it all. I still need to iron out the kinks with my controls though, and learn how to fly again :(
Wrong side is somewhere I've approached many times. You end up flying along the surface until the destination marker appears in front. I find checking the star map and if the destination is past a planet then make sure to hit a target beyond the planet as well.
I asked the question how do I hit mission markers that won't select in the star map, and the answer was to find one near the desired target and try and jump out of quantum as near as possible. 600Km out isn't a fun or efficient run in.
Might be a few of us attempting a group meet-up tonight. Checkout the SC channel in Discord.
And for anyone who missed the photo in Discord here we all are!
.
(https://puu.sh/C7VUC/8e89520889.png)
So how was it? no hype allowed
For you BT, horrible, get a refund, never ask me how I liked it. :roflmao:
Quote from: BrotherTobious;435624So how was it? no hype allowed
I'm in no rush to try this version again.
We struggled to get everyone in the same party and to then be able to see each other's character. Once we were all together on the same ship it went OK. We sought landing permission at our destination planet but before Albert could dock ... the bay doors closed! On a subsequent request they opened again but Albert was a bit too keen to get in before they possibly closed on us again. Mayhem ensued.
It's buggy/glitchy but is very pretty and the promise of an exceptional multiplayer environment is most obviously present.
Quote from: BrotherTobious;435624So how was it? no hype allowed
I think it was quicker to organise a school photo with 2,000 students tbh.
It's pretty ordinary if you ask me but I do see the potential.
I'm also not sure I bought the right ship unless I'm mistaken........ What options do I have?
I bought a Freelancer in the game package as attached. Do I try to sell it via star hangar or melt it down.
There's a lot for sale on Star Hangar and so many variants, how do you tell them apart?
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4737[/ATTACH]
you can upgrade it to other types of ship. But you need to figure out what kind of ship you need. Also, some ships have been completely reworked changing what they are being used for.
Quote from: OldBloke;435628I'm in no rush to try this version again.
We struggled to get everyone in the same party and to then be able to see each other's character. Once we were all together on the same ship it went OK. We sought landing permission at our destination planet but before Albert could dock ... the bay doors closed! On a subsequent request they opened again but Albert was a bit too keen to get in before they possibly closed on us again. Mayhem ensued.
It's buggy/glitchy but is very pretty and the promise of an exceptional multiplayer environment is most obviously present.
Before you dismiss the opportunity to try this again OB, go on alone and complete a few missions. They're good fun, particularly the ones where you go to a ruined station and collect a prize or repair something. It's even better in a group of 2 as one can watch your back whilst you complete.
Agree with OB, it's nice to fly around for a while, but is still bug ridden and ultimately there's very little to do. What missions can be taken are a lottery to complete as often the mission is bugged or an NPC won't react to allow the mission to complete or continue. With a limited amount of gaming time there are many, many games I enjoy playing now, rather than struggling with an Alpha stage tech demo. Also as games improve I don't think the graphic are really all that amazing when compared with a lot of other modern games. Yes they look sumptuous but so do a lot of other games coming out now. Cyberpunk 2077 looks equally as good as SC (better IMHO) and seems to be getting ready for a 2019 launch. In 'x' number of years when Star Citizen launches I wonder if it will look very special at all.
Penfold, I stand to be corrected but your Freelancer seems to be part of your game package I'm not sure if it can be exchanged without losing access to Squadron 42 and Star Citizen.
When you 'exchange' the Freelancer you convert it into store credits. You can then spend the credit on a new ship/s. However you will have exchanged your two game packages as well (Squadron 42 (single player game) and Star Citizen (multiplayer game). So in effect you no longer have access to the actual single player game (when it launches) and the multiplayer game now. You will have to spend some of your credit getting these packages back. The price of the base games went up some years ago so you will effectively waste some credits buying them back. It used to be about £30-40 for both games. Now they are that price each. A new game package comes with a single seater starter ship as part of the deal. But you then probably won't have much cash left to replace the Freelancer with anything useful.
You can 'upgrade' the Freelancer to something more expensive rather than 'exchanging' it and keep all the extras. Upgrades take the game packages with them. That's up to you but I'd be wary of giving any more money to Star Citizen and frankly the Freelancer is a very decent ship for messing about in the Alpha, doing little cargo runs, exploring etc. Personally I'd stick with it.
Ahh thanks. That's makes it a lot clearer. Thanks for the heads-up
Appreciated.
I had a brief discussion about progress in SC with Gal and Sith after our jolly the other night.
I’m inclined to agree that an Alpha is not the time to add content such as detailed missions or quality of life functionality. It’s all about delivering a stable MVP that can be built upon. I believe they are close to that and adding content is a formality afterwards.
Developing a story line and incorporating new missions can easily be brought in on top of a stable platform. A dev team need to focus on priorities and just because the backer community doesn’t get all they want initially, this focus ultimately delivers more quality in the medium term.
I also feel many of the community don’t own the right spec of PC to properly appreciate the quality of visuals and character innovations.
i spun up SC for the first time since 2016 the other night and partook in the picture opportunity.
Thoughts from me
I spent £40 odd on a ship in i think was Jan 14, i was hoping that the game would be finished by now, i certainly didn't expect it to still be in beta now. I thought that the group mechanics didn't work very well, ppl appeared offline when online, and some couldn't join our instance. the controls were very un-intuitive, it would be nice to have a tool tip thing pop up to tell you what things did, rather than guess.
the glitches were comical, i would have expected while in a ship you couldn't fall out of it into warp, well some did and died. even galactic emporium got that right!!
i must admit the gfx were great, but a nice game doesn't make a good game, think ill wait another year or so.....
I’d like to put the record straight and correct a few erroneous comments I’ve seen made:
It's been in development for 5 years...The game has been in development for nearly 6 years now (not 5 or, as the demented DS often states depending upon the phase of the moon, 7 or 8). So why is it not “done†yet? The average AAA game takes approx. 7 years to make, and often those 7 years aren’t enough, and the developer is forced to ship an incomplete and/or buggy game at the behest of the publisher, and then has to release patch after patch to ‘finish’ the game. E.g. Team Fortress 2 took 9 years to make! And that’s with a limited number of players, on very small maps, using cartoon-quality graphics, and it does only one thing: FPS. By that yard stick, if it takes another 3 years to finish Star Citizen, it still would have only taken the same amount of time as Team Fortress 2, and yet will be a much more varied game.
The other point that people often forget is that as of 6 years ago CIG didn’t exist. Most AAA games take 7 years to develop, but frequently that’s by an established studio, complete with teams of employees already in place, and usually assets from a previous incarnation of the next game to draw from (CoD, I’m looking at you), but CIG had none of that. They started with about 6 people coding on second-hand machines in someone’s dining room! They had to hire new people, rent new premises, buy equipment, etc. before they could even get started on the real development, and then have to build on that over the next 5 years, expanding as the scope of the game expanded. In short, they had to build a studio at the same time as trying to build not one, but two games, involving developing technology that has never been been used in gaming before! So to be where we are with the development after just 6 years is actually bloody impressive, if you ask me.
300 employees - what are they doing?CIG now employs over 500 people (not 300), across 4 studios in 3 countries. What are they all doing? Well, the complete list would be too long, but as a flavour:
- Ship concept artists.
- Ship designers.
- Ship 3D artists.
- Ship animation programmers.
- weapon concept artists.
- Weapon designers.
- Weapon 3D artists.
- Weapon animation programmers.
- Gameplay programmers.
- Clothing concept artists.
- Clothing 3D designers.
- UI designers.
- UI programmers.
- VFX programmers.
- Sound programmers.
- Character animators.
- Rigging.
- Animation and mo-cap teams.
- Physics programmers.
- Biome designers.
- Network engineers.
- Tools programmers.
- Lore writers.
- QA Testers.
- Etc.
From the beginning, CIG pledged to develop the game in an open forum, warts and all â€" we get to see a game developed from the ground up and take shape gradually over the years. On the RSI forums back in 2013, when everyone was bleating on about the game coming out in 2014, I said that based on the scope of the game as I understood it back then, it was unlikely to be finished by 2016, and that 2018 was a more reasonable target. I got slated for it. But most of those people don’t have 35+ years experience of development like I did. Game development often involves many twists and turns, and it is extremely common for development to change tack as it goes, dropping features once thought mandatory, introducing features that were thought impossible, or even starting the development all over again from the scratch, not just once or twice, but sometimes more! Watching “the sausage being made†isn’t necessarily pleasant, and many people are not suited to that â€" and I would recommend that those people buy the game, don’t install it, and wait until it goes live before playing. Basically, anyone who complains about the amount of time it has taken for CIG to get to this point really doesn’t understand game development, and needs to uninstall the game, go and play something else, and come back once it’s ready.
It should be better than this, it's in beta after all.The game is currently in ALPHA (Chris Roberts frequently refers to it as
pre-alpha), not Beta. Alpha is where features are still being added to the game, beta is where the game is “feature complete†but not yet content complete. Most of the content will be added during beta â€" again, this is very common in game development, and players tend not to get invites to play the game until beta, by which time most, if not all, of the features are already present. Currently we are at the stage where features are still being designed, coded and added, but some content is being added and used as a test-bed for the features. It’s the reason we’re still limited to just the one system and one planet right now â€" they have to get those working properly before expanding, but once that expansion starts, it will be very quick. Again, if you don’t understand this then you need to step back and wait at least for beta. In my opinion, I believe we’re looking at going into beta some time in 2020, with a go live somewhere around 2022 â€" so if you don’t have the stomach for it, wait until then before trying the game again.
Lack of content? Nothing to do? Seriously?
Since 3.0 â€" so basically the last 12 months â€" we’ve had:
- A new planet, a major industrial city and 7 moons to explore.
- Several “truck stops†to explore, refuel and repair at.
- Mining on planets, moons and space.
- Buying and selling of commodities.
- Courier missions.
- Combat missions.
- AI in FPS and Space
- Quantum Interdictions.
- FOIP
- VOIP
- 4 driveable ground vehicles.
- 3 driveable hover bikes.
- At least 6 new flyable ships.
- Reworks of 2 lines of ships.
- New ship weapons.
- New FPS weapons.
- New clothing.
- Renting and buying of ships in game (no need to buy any with real money from now on).
Yes, it’s a glitch-fest, it’s bug-ridden, there are crashes and things that don’t work…but that’s because it’s ALPHA…it is NOT a completed game! But that’s not to say you can’t have some fun with it.
So, in closing, I guess I would like to ask that we
discuss the game’s shortcomings as they stand now, refrain as far as possible from simply being negative, and try to promote a positive message about where the game is going.
I hope people will not be offended, but I took the admin liberty of editing this thread to put it back on track, as think we lost the will to live at some point.
Play nice, be happy and enjoy. :cheers::dmw:
@Obsydian, well put Sir!
Quote from: albert;435719@Obsydian, well put Sir!
Don't thank me - thank TeaLeaf - he did all the editing! :)